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Monthly magazine about history and scale plastic modeling.

Strana 11

airplanes undergoing maintenance at No. 103 Maintenance Unit

in Egyptian Aboukir, received the Aboukir type lter manufactu-

red by this unit. They were better aerodynamically shaped and

featured a louver which opened the lter on the intake only

at critical ight stages when larger dust volume could be suc-

ked in. Two versions of this lter are known. The majority of

aircraft equipped with Aboukir lter were of Mk.Vc version and

in the course of modications at No. 103 MU usually received

the clipped wingtips and Rotol propellers as well.

The shortened wingtips tted in Aboukir had a dierent shape

to the conventional shortened wingtips of the LF Mk.Vb and

Mk.Vc versions and did not have position lights tted. Some

aircraft retained the original wing design with classic wingtips,

and aircraft with extended wingtips for high altitude operati-

ons, later used on the Spitres HF Mk.VIII, are also known..

In combat

Spitres Mk.V of all versions served in all combat areas prac-

tically until the end of WWII. They bore the brunt of the RAF

ghter oensive in 1941-1942 and became the main ghter

type which in 1942 defended Malta against the intense German

Luftwae as well as Italian Regia Aeronautica raids. Apparently,

they were the most powerful ghters deployed during the Allied

landing in North Africa and were of essential importance for

the RAAF to modernize their equipment in the Far East. They

did well during the build-up of the rst USAAF ghter groups in

Europe and Mediterranean where two American ghter groups,

31st FG and 52nd FG ew them until the end of 1944. They

were own by pilots of many nations serving in RAF: Canadians,

South Africans, French, Czechoslovaks, Polish pilots, Norwegi-

ans, Belgium pilots and others. They were supplied to the Soviet

Union under the Lend-Lease program, became the backbone

of the Italian Air Force ghting on the Allied side after Italy’s

surrender in 1943 and served in the air forces of many neutral

countries such as Turkey or Ireland.

Some hard truth in the end

From the preceding outline of Spitre Mk.V development you

may get the feeling that it was pretty logical, one precisely

specied version replaced another one on the assembly lines,

the performance and characteristics were gradually increased.

In short a text-book step by step evolution. Unfortunately not

so. As usual, reality is much more diverse than the best thou-

ght out theory. The characteristics of the Spitre versions were

intertwining. The development was not straightforward, on the

contrary, it was rather turbulent. The airframes were gradually

upgraded during the overhauls or regular maintenance. So we

encounter the aforementioned Mk.Vc with the exhaust pipes

for the weapons’ heating which were not supposed to be there

or Mk.Vb with smooth leading edge featuring only the Hispano

cannon barrel which is typical for Mk.Vc. Spitre Mk.Vb catego-

rization into Early, Mid and Late is neither precise nor clear. In

fact many airframes with the integrated armor glass, conside-

red as Mk.Vb late, were manufactured earlier than the series

of aircraft with the outer armor glass designated as Mk.Vb mid.

Similarly if the airframe features the integrated armor glass it

does not automatically mean it also features the bulged Mal-

colm Hood sliding canopy. There were airplanes with the com-

bination of the integrated armor glass and older sliding canopy

with the attened sides and ventilation opening. And then we

have tropical Spitres. Theoretically the vast majority of Spit-

res Mk.Vb and Vc modied at No.103 OU in Aboukir were con-

verted to LF Mk.Vb/c with the shortened wings. In fact many of

these aircraft retained the standard non-clipped wing and we

know about the aircraft with lengthened wings for high altitude

operations typical for later versions HF Mk.VIII and IX. Much

confusion still exists around the wing skin strengthening strips

above the wheel wells. These were installed on the war-weary

airframes when the skin degradation and fatigue cracks started

to appear. These aircraft are typically the well-preserved muse-

um exhibits. For that reason these strengthening elements are

considered the integral parts of Spitre Mk.V design as well as

Mk.I and Mk.II. Not true again. Actually it is very dicult, may-

be even impossible to nd these strips on the wartime Spitres

operational at the combat units. We could continue naming

these types of anomalies indenitely. Let’s conclude this chap-

ter on Spitre Mk.V development with the statement that as

far as this aircraft is concerned nothing is impossible, features

that are not supposed to be there are found and vice versa. But

that’s the life I guess. Well, it’s not only a matter of life, it’s

a matter of war as well. War is the true reason for this apparent

chaos. However, it’s the chaos from today‘s point of view, point

of view of the people in whose world the technical progress is

fast but contained by certain conditions and norms or let’s say

by the letter of law. This was completely dierent at the time

of war. The whole life in the society, all manufacturing and

the individual lives were subject to one single goal: the victory.

Spitre Mk.Vc armed with four Hispano Mk.II cannons. Propeller is De Havilland, new canopy style with interior glass armor on

the windshield and bulged sides of the canopy sliding portion. The aircraft supposedly carries an older type of radio Tr.9D (photo:

Simon Erland).

It was the goal cherished by the victorious nations decades after

the end of hostilities and up until these days. Since the outbre-

ak of the war, which some people naively expected to be short

and easy, it was clear that the victor will be the tougher, more

powerful and more creative one. It has been like that in every

war as far as we can remember just due to some mysterious

reasons people, including their top leaders, kept forgetting it

to only re-learn those facts when the new conicts occured.

The Second World War was no dierent in this aspect; it was

however unique in its scale, persistence, damages and horrors

it caused. Everyone involved was determined, tough and persi-

stent, all nations that took part in it reached to the bottom of

their resources despite dierent levels in casualties, suering

of the soldiers and civilian population as well. As we know it

was getting worse going further to the East. The aviation in-

dustry reects the given period of time and this was identical

on both sides of the front. You will nd the Spitre’s develop-

ment mirror image in Messerschmitt Bf 109 development. The

same motivations, same goals, same problems and same results.

The greatest eort was made to produce as many aircraft as

possible, with the best performance possible and surpass the

enemy both in numbers and quality. There was the same eort

on both sides resulting in the deadly race. Every innovation on

one side triggered the innovation on the opponent‘s side, every

increase in performance almost immediately caused the rapid

reaction in the enemy’s camp. If we apply this principle to the

competition between Spitre and Bf 109 it will be crystal clear.

Just the scale of troubles experienced during manufacturing

will be opposite on the timeline. With a fair amount of simpli-

cation we can say that while in Britain, or the Allied side, the

most serious problems were encountered at the beginning of

the war, culminating during 1940-1942, things got streamlined

towards the end of the conict when the material supremacy

of the Allies was absolute. Of course the economical potential

of the United States played a crucial role but we cannot unde-

restimate the importance of the British industry and its share

in the Allied manufacturing achievements. It was the opposite

on the Axis side. Out of all countries Germany was best pre-

pared for war and in 1940 lived in euphoria that its industries

could supply the armed forces without problems until the victo-

rious end. The breakpoint was reached however in the second

half of 1942 with the opposite trend than in Allied countries.

Even though the productivity of the German industry continued

growing it was consistently falling behind the Allied industries

and the supplies to the armies at the fronts were getting worse

proportionally to improving supplies to the Allied armies.

From this aspect some apparently illogical facts start to emerge

in a dierent light. As an example, the aforementioned fabric-

-covered ailerons on Spitres Mk.I and Mk.V remained in produ-

ction long after the new, more eective all-metal ailerons were

developed. They were approved for large-scale production in

December 1940 but almost the whole rst half of 1941 Spitres

were leaving the assembly lines with the fabric-covered aile-

rons and in some combat units a large number of aircraft still

featured these ailerons in late summer and fall 1941. During

this time, typically pragmatic Americans, without any lengthy

approval process, started to cover the ailerons on their Spit-

res with the plywood. So this was happening almost a year after

the all-metal ailerons were to undisputedly replace the fabric-

-covered ones on manufacturing lines (one can hardly imagine

the situation like this nowadays). If we however factor in all

other facts of that period of time we will get another picture.

What was happening then? The winter 1940/41 German bombing

raids on Britain continued until the spring. The Spitres produ-

ction however was seriously aected by the raid on September

26, 1941 when the Supermarine plants in Wolston and Itchen

were heavily damaged. This resulted in the production reorga-

nization, component manufacturing had to be spread among

the number of subcontractors and the aircraft nal assembly

was being transferred to new locations. This of course caused

a number of problems not only in manufacturing but also in the

logistics which had to be dealt with promptly. Restarting the

Spitre Mk.I manufacturing before the end of 1940 is from this

point of view a miracle enhanced by a fact that the aircraft ma-

nufactured were continuously improved. After New Year’s 1941

Spitre Mk.V production was being launched. The goal was to

improve Spitre performance to the level of the most powerful

RAF ghter before Bf 109F started to appear at the front and

soon even better and more dangerous FW 190A made their debut.

At the same time RAF losses were mounting after commencing

the permanent oensive in the spring of 1941 which created an

enormous pressure on their replenishment. In such a situation

the quantity beats quality and the manufacturer under pressure

prioritizes fullling the orders at all cost. The requirement was

to deliver the aircraft with a more powerful engine and more

powerful weapons in sucient numbers to meet combat needs.

The production met the goals however at the cost of the enor-

mous problems. There was a shortage of everything, from labor

force to material to means of daily consumption but time was

in the shortest supply. In such a situation the fabric-covered

ailerons were a minor problem for the manufacturers. Their

production was going smoothly, it was well established, fabric

was applied by highly skilled female workers and as such it was

not a burden for the overall plant tasks. All-metal ailerons were

a dierent cup of tea. Their immediate implementation would

take away some capacity from the airframe production. While

the responsible department would train for the new techno-

logy it would result in the short supplies of the ailerons and

for some time no deliveries at all. The personnel enthusiasm

for technology change has never been great either. It’s been

a problem since the Industrial Revolution and it remains the

issue nowadays. People don’t like to change something that

works and can put up a persistent and sophisticated resistance

against the change. If you are a manager you are under the

customer’s pressure and if you don’t want to get a heart attack

you need to minimize the problems resolving the major ones

rst addressing minor ones later. Big problem was new engines

and heavier weapons installation. That had to be solved, it was

a fundamental problem. The ailerons were a minor problem,

the manufacturing was going smoothly, the airplanes were

ying with them just ne so the problem was put on the back

burner. The air force got their share of trouble while introdu-

cing Mk.V into the operations such as engine overheating, guns

freezing etc. therefore the ailerons and their limits were not

really on the radar screen. Once these initial problems were

resolved in the summer of 1941 the damned ailerons came back

on the agenda and the air force demanded the thorough repla-

cement of the fabric-covered ailerons for all-metal ones on all

Spitres in service. So nally the manufacturers had to yield

and implement the change. Does it make sense to you? It does

to me, it sounds all too familiar. It is exactly the same with new

technologies introduction in our company, with one exception,

no one is dropping bombs on our heads and instead of RAF the

modellers are yelling at us when something does not work at

the rst shot. And nothing works satisfactorily for the rst time.

We can go case by case and it will be the same story. Ridiculing

it, talking about chaos and inability is not fair. Only us, people

from the future, from our perspective of the over-educated and

over-regulated smart heads living in comfort who have rather

vague and Hollywood-distorted visions about the conditions our

ancestors lived in and problems they dealt with. Once we get

in-depth familiar with these conditions and put the historic

processes and facts into the perspective, which we otherwise

tend to judge separately, we will change our opinion. We will

appreciate what our ancestors achieved and have to bow to

them very low. And regardless of the nation we belong to. It do-

esn’t matter if we speak about the British, Americans, Germans,

Japanese, Czechs or Russians. In principle the stories are the

same. Let’s respect and honour our ancestors and let’s make an

eort not to lose the well-being, achieved thanks to their work

and sacrices, because of our ignorance and arrogance.

The following 47 gures will lead you through the Spitre Mk.V

development depicting the details peculiar to each version.

The focus is on the changes made in comparison to the pre-

vious version. The common features are usually not described

and commented on, however exceptions can be found in some

gures.

Enjoy studying the following references.

HISTORY

INFO Eduard

11

December 2025